Add Configuration Options 

To add new configuration options:

  1. Define the options that you want to be configurable. You can create new options per bundle, which means a bundle can extend the available options. To add new options, create the entity_config.yml file in your bundle as follows:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/config/oro/entity_config.yml 
entity_config:
  acme_demo:
    entity:
      items:
        comment:
          options:
            default_value: ""
            translatable: true
            indexed: true
          grid:
            type: string
            label: 'Comment'
            show_filter: true
            filterable: true
            filter_type: string
            sortable: true
          form:
            type: Symfony\Component\Form\Extension\Core\Type\TextType
            options:
              block: entity
              label: 'Comment'
    field:
      items:
        auditable:
          options:
            indexed: true
            priority: 60
          grid:
            type: boolean
            label: 'Auditable'
            show_filter: false
            filterable: true
            filter_type: boolean
            sortable: true
            required: true
          form:
            type: Oro\Bundle\EntityConfigBundle\Form\Type\ChoiceType
            options:
              block: entity
              label: 'Auditable'
              choices:
                No: false
                Yes: true

The key used in the first level of the entity configuration is a custom identifier used to create a kind of namespace for the additional options. For each scope, a different service is created (its name follows the schema oro_entity_config.provider.<scope>). For example, the service name for the options configured in the example above is oro_entity_config.provider.acme_demo. It is an instance of the Oro\Bundle\EntityConfigBundle\Provider\ConfigProvider class.

Options can be configured on two levels: on the entity level or per field. The example above adds a new comment property that allows the users to add custom comments per configurable entity. It also adds the auditable option on the field level. This means that the user can decide for every field on an entity whether or not it should be audited.

The configured values are stored in different tables:

  • Values for options on the entity level are stored in the oro_entity_config table.

  • The oro_entity_config_field table stores configured values for the field level.

Below the configuration level, each option’s configuration is divided into three sections:

  • options - These values are used to configure additional behavior for the config field:

    Option

    Description

    default_value

    The value that is used by default when no custom value was added.

    translatable

    If true, the value entered by the user is treated as a key which is then used to look up the actual value using the Symfony translation procedure.

    indexed

    Set this to true when the attribute needs to be accessed in SQL queries (see Indexed Attributes).

    priority

    Defines the order in which options will be shown in grid views and forms (options with a higher priority will be displayed before options with a lower priority).

  • grid - Configures the way the field is presented in a datagrid:

    Option

    Description

    type

    The attribute type

    label

    The grid column headline

    • show_filter

    • filterable

    • filter_type

    These options control whether the view can be filtered by the attribute value and how the filter options look like.

    sortable

    When enabled, the user can sort the table by clicking on the attribute column’s title.

    Note

    To use the attribute in a grid view, it needs to be indexed.

  • form - You use these options to control how the user can configure the actual value:

    Option

    Description

    type

    The form type

    options

    Additional options controlling the form layout:

    • block

    The block of the form in which the attribute will be displayed

    • label

    The field label

    • choices

    Possible values from which the user can choose one (this option is only available when the form type is choice)

    • empty_value

    The value that is taken when the user makes no choice (this option is only available when the form type is choice)

2. Update all configurable entities after configuration parameters have been modified or added using the oro:entity-config:update command:

php bin/console oro:entity-config:update --force

When the oro:entity-config:update command is executed without using the --force option, only new values will be added, but no existing parameters will be updated.

php bin/console oro:entity-config:update

The --dry-run option outputs modifications without actually applying them.

php bin/console oro:entity-config:update --dry-run

A regular expression provided with the --filter option is used to filter entities by their class names:

php bin/console oro:entity-config:update --filter=<regexp>
php bin/console oro:entity-config:update --filter='Oro\\Bundle\\User*'
php bin/console oro:entity-config:update --filter='^Oro\\(.*)\\Region$'

Indexed Attributes 

The values the user enters when editing additional entity attributes are stored as serialized arrays in the database by default. However, when the application uses attributes in an SQL query, it needs to get the raw data. To achieve this, you must enable the index using the indexed key in the options section. When this option is enabled, the system will store a copy of the attribute’s value and keep it in sync when it gets updated (the indexed value is stored in the oro_entity_config_index_value table).

For example, it is required for fields to be visible in grids in the System > Entities section and have a filter or allow sorting in this grid. In this case, you can mark a field as indexed. For example:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/config/oro/entity_config.yml 
entity_config:
  acme:                                 # a configuration scope name
    entity:                             # a section describes an entity
      items:                            # starts a description of entity attributes
        demo_attr:                      # adds an attribute named 'demo_attr'
          options:
            indexed:  true              # TRUE if an attribute should be filterable or sortable in a data grid

When you do this, a copy of this attribute will be stored in the oro_entity_config_index_value table (and kept synchronized if a value is changed). As a result, you can write SQL query like this:

select *
from oro_entity_config c
         inner join oro_entity_config_index_value v on v.entity_id = c.id
where v.scope = 'acme_demo' and v.code = 'comment' and v.value like '%comment%';